First…Melinda’s thoughts

I spent the first part of this morning discussing with Dena the upcoming blog to coincide with the Mug Rug kit. The Mug Rug kit includes updated weaving directions, new and exciting ways to weave mug rugs without floating selvedges and a tribute to her mother Frimi.  

After discussing floating selvedges, she turned her attention to her mother. Frimi was a first-grade teacher in Brooklyn NY. With love and pride Dena told the story of Frimi’s ability to teach anyone how to read. During her career it was common for teachers to want the best students, including Frimi.   As time went by, she found herself teaching in tougher schools with the most challenging first graders. Frimi accepted her fate. She chose to step back and observe and embrace these children. Frimi’s teaching skills thrived and she found joy doing what her peers so strongly avoided.  

One of the many things I love about Dena is her passion for weaving. Part of this morning’s conversation was about floating selvedges.  and Dena’s excitment in figuring out how to weave this project without floating selvedges. I don’t have the passion for weaving or teaching like Dena and Frimi, but I am inspired.  I realized Dena has inherited her mother’s talent. Stepping back, observing, and teaching a way to handle a challenging issue. I could not help but question what am I avoiding in my own life? Where do I need to step back and observe to find a solution to the very thing I am avoiding? How about you? I hope you enjoy the blog.

Melinda

Dena’s personal assistant.

Second…the surprises

One of the things that continues to charm me about weaving is that even after 38 years, there is still so much to learn and so many surprises to uncover. Here is a new one for me.

As many of you know, I do not enjoy weaving with floating selvedges and I find that for me, it is harder to get great cloth when using them. I have plenty of tricks up my sleeve for avoiding them, including not worrying so much when my selvedge threads skip for a row or two, especially with fine threads. But I am currently working on mug rugs with 8/4 cotton and worsted weight wool, along with a high contrast between warp and weft colors. This draft uses a tie-up that I created for the eight-shaft version of Project #4 (Jeweled Towels) and at that time, I had rearranged the tie-up a bit to make the selvedges work. I had figured that using the same tie-up on this project would give me a similar result, but I was wrong, and I think it is because of the heavier weight yarn and the higher contrast in color.

The first thing I always try is removing a thread or two from each selvedge to see if beginning or ending the threading in a different place will make a difference. Then I will try throwing the shuttle from the other side. Neither helped so I tried removing the thread that was problematic. While it didn’t work to break the pattern two threads in, keeping the selvedge threads on shaft 1 but removing the thread on shaft 2 did the trick.

I have some ideas about why this is working, but haven’t puzzled it out completely so that might come later. For now, I am charmed that it is working and will be using this threading for the next rewrite of the pattern.

Happy Weaving!